1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to viewing audio-visual works, and, more particularly, relates to an apparatus, system and method for viewing audio-visual works based on credits accrued for viewing advertisements.
2. Description of the Background
Although multimedia viewing has become exceedingly popular using on-line mechanisms, most audio-visual content is still viewed by television set. Thus, numerous features are offered in conjunction with television sets to provide audio-visual content, including, but not limited to, the providing of standard or digital cable, satellite, on-demand showings, pay-per-view showings, and recorded showings, which may be recorded via, for example, a local personal digital video recorder (DVR) or a remote digital video recorder (rDVR), such as a network digital video recorder (nDVR). A DVR is thus a device that records, onto a digital media, multiple audiovisual programs.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that audio-visual content may be provided, for example, from a cable head end or optical network central office-type facility via one or more regional servers, such as edge servers and/or gateway servers, for presentation from broadcast feeds, for recordation via a DVR, such as for presentation of switched digital, narrowcast, or like programming, and/or for presentation of rDVR programming from in-network, video on-demand or pay-per-view programming. These programming types may thus be provided by the head end- or central office-type facility, preferably through the regional servers or offices, such as the aforementioned edge servers, for example. Likewise, programming may be provided over a cellular or wireless network, such as via streaming, for storage local to a television set or for storage remote from the television set, for ultimate display on a television set, for example.
Further, the aforementioned audio-visual services may be provided to customers entitled to receive such services, which entitlements may be indicated by, for example, having an account with a provider of the services, and/or having equipment issued by the provider of the services, that is identified as indicating a customer who is entitled to the respective video service. The existence of such an account may be indicated by an identifier associated with, for example, a cable, satellite, cellular, wi-fi, or optical network receiver, such as a set top box (STB), tablet computer synched to a particular STB or television, or an internet protocol based television (IPTV), for example.
Irrespective of the audio-visual service ultimately provided to a television, or the manner of presentation of such a service, the available art is consistent in the manner of charging for the aforementioned services to a television set—namely, the manner of charging is by a subscription fee, such as a monthly subscription, quarterly subscription, annual subscription, or the like, and/or a per use fee, such as a bandwidth consumption fee, or a one-time fee generated when a user requests, such as via an STB, to download an on-demand movie for viewing to that STB. However, there are substantial drawbacks with the standard method(s) of charging for video services, and particularly with these methods when charging for DVR, rDVR, on-demand or pay-per-view services. One such drawback is that many customers of a provider are foreclosed from paying the provider for those services because those customers do not pay a monthly subscription fee to have the services available to those customers, for example. In other words, and by way of example, if a customer does not pay a monthly subscription fee to have DVR services available to that customer, the provider necessarily can gain no income from DVR services in relation to that customer. Thus, although most services made available by a provider are highly scalable, and although bandwidth is typically available to provide such scalable services, the revenue pool from which providers can gain revenue for certain services is limited based on the services already provided by the provider to those customers who would otherwise desire the services.
Therefore, the need exists for an alternative charging method for the provision of audio-visual services by a provider to one or more user televisions.